It's not a whole other issue at all.

You are campaigning to expand the scope of legislation some of us would like to see abolished completely.

They are very much related and competing purposes.

McReal: Defending MT again - the best hospital care..... Which hospital care did Mr Rudd choose, public or private? And not a wiff of criticism so if you can, why not?

Kipp: Thank you for your response. Gays want - equality, choices and respect in life and not to be treated as a first class taxpayer and second class Australian. Gee whiz, the rest of us are wanting this too.
Believing a change in the marriage act to include same sex unions will give equality, choices and respect is a false dream. The marriage act doesn't give this heterosexual couples; so it won't give it to same sex couples.

Same sex couples in Australia have equality and they have choices. They have the freedom to be in a union; a freedom that is denied in countries where other religions and communism are the major influence. Choice results in consequences. Same sex couples knowingly enter into a union that precludes them from producing offspring.

Briar Rose: Thank you for your response. The crux of the matter may lie in your comment that same sex couples want 'a legal framework in which to build a family.'
Do 60% agree that same sex couples should have access to IVF and the right to adopt? Put those questions separately in the next survey, publish and openly debate the response

WWG, if you consider you are also missing out, then you ,must agree that there is inequity in Australian society. Though in your penulimate paragraph, appears to indictate otherwise in respect of same sex couples.

Russell,
Abolishing the Marriage Act altogether is one way of addressing its discriminatory nature.

However. There are many heterosexual couples who for a variety of reasons want to register their marriages.

It is so important to them to be able to do this, that even if they are already in de facto relationships, they still want to register their marriages with the state.

Many heterosexual couples feel that registering their marriage with the state is formalising a private commitment, and is not, as you describe it, an invasion by the state into the bedroom.

It may be symbolic to register the marriage, and if so, it is powerfully symbolic to these couples. What right do you have to tell these couples that they can't do that anymore because you want the legislation abolished?

Same sex marriage advocates are not saying, "because we can't register nobody should be able to, so abolish the Act." We recognise that it is too important to too many people to try and get rid of it altogether.

We are saying, make the legislation non-discriminatory, as all legislation should be non discriminatory. Make the legislation inclusive.

In this sense you are nothing like the gay marriage advocates because you want to deny a process to everyone, no matter how important it might be to them, because you feel it is an intrusion by the state.

Nobody makes you register your marriage. You will not be disadvantaged if you stay de facto. So what is your problem with letting people have their own perceptions about the state's role in marriage, and going down that road if they want to?

Why do you have to attempt to exert control over something that doesn't have to affect you at all unless you want it to?

briar rose,

So although you might see marriage as deeply flawed (discriminates against women, yes?) and the Marriage Act ought be trashed (hey it is only that hated Christian symbolism, right?), you nonetheless want it all kept for the moment because its 'powerful symbolism' is useful and convenient for the equality of gays?

However your support for marriage is conditional upon gays being part of it, right?

Also, you wouldn't object to other changes too such as polygamy, yes?

As long as all understand where you are coming from, that intrusion by the State is OK where you agree with it, but it is not OK and always 'discriminatory' where you don't. In your land it was quite OK - good even - for the State to enter homosexuals' bedrooms to define their relationships for them and for the Family Court to make decisions concerning their assets and income. Big Sister dong what they as adults were perfectly capable of sorting out for themselves before. That is not discriminatory because presumably it serves another goal you have in mind. So those gays who led perfectly happy and carefree lives, flexing their relationships to suit their lifestyles and choices can go suck it up, they in their thousands are collateral damage.

Now you and the Greens want to set the bull loose in the China shop as far as marriage is concerned, despite Parliament ruling otherwise twice and you see no need for a referendum or process to directly involve the electorate in the decision? Is it time you reckon for another another back door deal that excludes the people affected, which is contrary to what you say, the whole electorate? If not, why don't you support a democratic resolution?

The end justifies the means, huh?

briar rose, far out, where do I start? It's not the government's place to be pandering to some people's authoritarian leanings. (Good lord, how does registration with the state make a union more legitimate? Do these people have Mao-style paintings of our fearless leaders on their bedroom walls?)

It's not so much the registration that's the issue, anyway. It's the special treatment that goes along with it.